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Really? You'd pay WoW less if you were paid (and there were no other difference)? That makes no sense. Saying "I like to hack for free" is not the same as sa

Really? You'd pay WoW less if you were paid (and there were no other difference)? That makes no sense. Saying "I like to hack for free" is not the same as saying "I like to hack twilio apps on a deadline for free." If twilio were saying, "sign up, do whatever hacking you'd be doing otherwise, and we'll pay you some", it's just stupid not to. But that's not what they're asking. They're asking you to write demo apps for them on spec. That's why it's a little insulting.

randallsquared 17y ago
I'm not going to argue that it makes sense, exactly, but it's a feature of how my preferences work. If I get paid to do something, it short-circuits the "is this fun" logic in favor of "is this worth doing monetarily". They're not really additive.
mediaman 17y ago
This is a common feature of how humans work and it is backed by volumes of research. Motivation consists of two types: internal (or intrinsic) and external. External is what you do because somebody will reward you, usually with money. Internal is what you do because you love to do it. In this particular respect, motivation in most people is a zero sum game. If you do something because you love it, and then someone starts paying you for it, the degree to which you do it because you love it must decrease. That's why many people who love to do something so much they decide to go get paid for it gradually find themselves not liking at all what they used to love to do.
- calambrac 17y ago
  The fact that it's common doesn't make it less stupid. It's not actually a zero-sum game, that's just something you pulled out of your ass. Quoting social scientists as if they were bearers of truth doesn't really seem like a winning strategy. Most people who try to do what they love for pay don't really; they end up doing something that requires the same skillset as what they love, and of course they end up miserable as a result.
zck 17y ago
Humans are not rational when it comes to money. There are many studies that illustrate this. For example, if you give someone a choice between a candy bar and $1.00, they will choose the candy bar with greater frequency than if you give them $1.00 and offer them the choice of buying a candy bar for $1.00. It's not rational -- you end up the same in either study, but it's the way we work. In this case, being paid $5.00 per hour turns WoW from something you want to do to a job you get paid to do, and you think about it differently. Psychologists explain it by saying that external rewards reduce intrinsic motivation. An article from the Boston Globe is here: http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/~pk/motivation.html http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/~pk/motivation.html "If a reward - money, awards, praise, or winning a contest - comes to be seen as the reason one is engaging in an activity, that activity will be viewed as less enjoyable in its own right." Wikipedia also has an interesting article about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect
- calambrac 17y ago
  I didn't say or imply humans were rational about money, I was pointing out a case where one was being irrational, and noting that the scenario they brought up didn't actually map to the issue at hand anyways. And the reason it didn't map? Because it tried to introduce an external motivator to coerce hackers to engage in a particular activity that they weren't otherwise intrinsically motivated to perform. And when did we start giving social "scientists" the final say on these things? Setting up contrived scenarios with children and college students hardly strikes me as definitive. Real scenarios where people are given free reign to do just as they like for pay or meaningful reward are few and far between. "Getting paid to do what you love" usually isn't - it's much more commonly getting paid to do something that requires the same skillset as the thing you love, and it's obvious why that would kill motivation.
  - zck 17y ago
    I listen to psychologists on this because they're the people who have done rigorous studies on the issue. Seems like a good reason to listen to them. Why are you railing against this? The data are against you.

randallsquared 17y ago

I'm not going to argue that it makes sense, exactly, but it's a feature of how my preferences work. If I get paid to do something, it short-circuits the "is this fun" logic in favor of "is this worth doing monetarily". They're not really additive.

mediaman 17y ago

This is a common feature of how humans work and it is backed by volumes of research. Motivation consists of two types: internal (or intrinsic) and external. External is what you do because somebody will reward you, usually with money. Internal is what you do because you love to do it. In this particular respect, motivation in most people is a zero sum game. If you do something because you love it, and then someone starts paying you for it, the degree to which you do it because you love it must decrease. That's why many people who love to do something so much they decide to go get paid for it gradually find themselves not liking at all what they used to love to do.

calambrac 17y ago
The fact that it's common doesn't make it less stupid. It's not actually a zero-sum game, that's just something you pulled out of your ass. Quoting social scientists as if they were bearers of truth doesn't really seem like a winning strategy. Most people who try to do what they love for pay don't really; they end up doing something that requires the same skillset as what they love, and of course they end up miserable as a result.

zck 17y ago

Humans are not rational when it comes to money. There are many studies that illustrate this. For example, if you give someone a choice between a candy bar and $1.00, they will choose the candy bar with greater frequency than if you give them $1.00 and offer them the choice of buying a candy bar for $1.00. It's not rational -- you end up the same in either study, but it's the way we work. In this case, being paid $5.00 per hour turns WoW from something you want to do to a job you get paid to do, and you think about it differently. Psychologists explain it by saying that external rewards reduce intrinsic motivation. An article from the Boston Globe is here: http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/~pk/motivation.html http://www.csse.uwa.edu.au/~pk/motivation.html "If a reward - money, awards, praise, or winning a contest - comes to be seen as the reason one is engaging in an activity, that activity will be viewed as less enjoyable in its own right." Wikipedia also has an interesting article about this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overjustification_effect

calambrac 17y ago
I didn't say or imply humans were rational about money, I was pointing out a case where one was being irrational, and noting that the scenario they brought up didn't actually map to the issue at hand anyways. And the reason it didn't map? Because it tried to introduce an external motivator to coerce hackers to engage in a particular activity that they weren't otherwise intrinsically motivated to perform. And when did we start giving social "scientists" the final say on these things? Setting up contrived scenarios with children and college students hardly strikes me as definitive. Real scenarios where people are given free reign to do just as they like for pay or meaningful reward are few and far between. "Getting paid to do what you love" usually isn't - it's much more commonly getting paid to do something that requires the same skillset as the thing you love, and it's obvious why that would kill motivation.
- zck 17y ago
  I listen to psychologists on this because they're the people who have done rigorous studies on the issue. Seems like a good reason to listen to them. Why are you railing against this? The data are against you.